


Fic: Something Like Life

by linaerys



Category: Being Human
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-16
Updated: 2008-06-16
Packaged: 2017-10-07 07:26:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linaerys/pseuds/linaerys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five scenes of George, Mitchell and Annie. Written for the pilot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fic: Something Like Life

1.

"Can ghosts have sex?" asks George. He's cleaning, as always, dishrag removing dirt and grease from the kitchen sink until the porcelain is clean and catches his fingers when he rubs them across it.

"Dunno," says Annie. "Dunno if I'd want to."

She's close; he can feel her nearby like a breeze on his skin, like his body is a house with all the windows open. If he turns suddenly, though, she'll be across the room, so instead of looking he puts more muscle into the cleaning than it needs.

"Stop that. You'll scratch my house," she adds.

"But can you?" Now he glances at her.

"It's not me you're asking for," she says with that uncomfortable half smile, the one that usually presages her hurrying back across the room, through furniture instead of knocking it over. "Drinks go right through me, don't they?"

George's mental image of Mitchell, yes, Mitchell, vague about his age and experiences, shagging her goes somewhat more comical. "I suppose they do."

"Don't worry about him," says Annie. "He's all yours."

"That's not what I meant." But she's gone. The hairs on the back of George's neck settle back down while he folds laundry. He never asks Annie where she goes when she disappears like that. If she even knows, she'd never tell him the truth.

 

2.

It hurts turning--it's what he told Mitchell, it's what he's told everyone who's asked (precious few) and what's more it's true.

But it's not the whole story. He fights it every time, but once he stops fighting it, once he's too far gone to fight it, it's the most satisfying pain he's ever experienced, as if something in him that has always been wrong is finally right.

The stories are right about the pleasure of the hunt as well. The good boy, George, with a mouth full of blood and flesh that tastes like coming home.

The first time he locks himself up when he turns, he can hardly move the following morning. There's blood on him, but it's only his own, where he cracked his own flesh against the door. He's exhausted and wired all the next day without that release.

 

3.

Mitchell is wrong; George's faith has never had an afterlife, just some odd concept of bodily resurrection that seemed an unpleasant idea to George even before he was cursed.

Less a faith than a set of rules.

Less a set of rules than set of traditions, dinners with family, the cadence of Hebrew words that he can remember in his blood more than his mind, at least on the days when the curse isn't singing its horrible, seductive song through those same veins.

Mitchell raises a sardonic eyebrow when George starts lighting Shabbos candles, but says nothing.

"It should be the woman of the house," he says one Friday night, handing the candle to Annie.

"I'm not Jewish," she says, but she takes it anyway.

 

4.

"I'll stay with you," Mitchell offers. Nonchalant, like he just thought of it, but the dart of his eyes tells a different story.

"I'll kill you," says George, without affect, trying not to let Mitchell see how at this time, a few short hours before the full moon, the thought of that is as attractive as it is abhorent. Not dead Mitchell--that would be terrible any time, but the thought of the silk soft skin of Mitchell's neck between his teeth is terribly alluring, so much that George licks his lips, sending Mitchell's raised eyebrow a couple millimeters higher.

"No, you won't. I heal as well as you do."

George presses his mobile phone into Mitchell's hand, wrapping Mitchell's long fingers around it. "Call Annie if you need to. She'll get you out."

Mitchell takes the phone and says nothing.

When George starts to change, Mitchell kneels in front of him, and puts his hands on either side of George's face. George can smell the blood under Mitchell's skin, different than any human, sweet like honey, like lilacs, like overripe fruit. Mitchell's eyes go all black, the way he's always tried to hide from George before. Dark as a new moon sky.

George comes back to himself with his head in Mitchell's lap, and Mitchell's hand laid softly on his shoulder.

 

5.

"Please come with me," asks Mitchell.

Annie won't tonight, says she's feeling thin, and neither of them press, so George goes with Mitchell to the bar. Watches from the corner as his magnetism pulls a woman away from her group. Watches darkness slide across his eyes when she turns her head.

He follows as they leave together, footsteps silent as they never were before the curse.

"I'll never turn another one. I'll never kill another one," Mitchell promised himself and George before they went out.

George put his hand on Mitchell's shoulder and felt the delicate bones underneath. "I'll help."

"I know you will," said Mitchell, eyes so clear and open that George wanted to look away.

Mitchell's eyes never leave George's as he feeds. George can hear him say, "It's late," to the woman, although he shouldn't be able to from this far away. "I should be getting home." Mitchell presses his fingers to her neck; she'll heal quickly, she won't even know.

He falls into step beside George a block later. George smiles up at him. "We should be getting home."


End file.
